Chemistry Qualifications - Options

Home-ed students take IGCSE Chemistry exams rather than GCSE because the GCSE involves Controlled Assessments. Exam centres are very reluctant to take external candidates for these as it is time consuming and bureaucratic.The International GCSE (IGCSE) Chemistry substitutes "Alternative to Practical" questions for these assessments, and so consists of written exams only. The 'Certificate' qualifications below are simply IGCSEs for UK state schools.

Edexcel IGCSE / Certificate Chemistry, AQA Certificate Chemistry, and CIE IGCSE Chemistry are available for private candidates.

Edexcel International GCSE / Edexcel Certificate

Edexcel IGCSE Chemistry Subject Page

The exam board's website is usually the best place to find past papers - most of them keep the most recent past paper password-protected for exam centres only, but you can download others and mark schemes, examiners' reports etc, freely. Just search, eg, "edexcel igcse chemistry" and it is easy to find -

For Edexcel IGCSE, you will need to look at the IGCSE Chemistry from 2009 AND the IGCSE Chemistry from 2011. The changes were very minor and the past papers from the 2009 spec are good practice for the 2011. You can also practise with questions from the older, pre-2009, spec; if you do the past papers from the most recent spec first, you can then go through the older ones and pick out similar questions. Sometimes the time allowed and total marks are different, so what we do with old papers is look at the overall marks and overall time, work out how many minutes are available per mark, and then put together a few practise questions with the appropriate time limits. I know it may seem obvious, but you don't have to do a whole 2 hour paper in one go either. It is, of course, helpful to have a couple of mock exams the exact length as the real thing, but otherwise, it may fit your family better to chop it up into several half-hour chunks.

Textbooks for Edexcel IGCSE Chemistry

[Edexcel IGCSE chemistry student book by Jim Clark] has been highly recommended by many. The author has his own website where he offers all the answers PLUS [additional support to home -ed parents]. Pearson Edexcel also provide the [answers to all questions] as a free download

There is a Collins Edexcel IGCSE Chemistry book, but note that answers are not provided to the exam-style questions; these are in the Teacher Pack, which costs £98!! However, if you ask on the HE Exams group, someone may well have a copy of the answers. Collins have generally been helpful recently when members have contacted them asking for a copy of the answers. (18/08/15 - I contacted Collins by email who instantly replied to my email enclosing the answers for both Chemistry and Physics textbooks. RB)

Hodder: Edexcel International GCSE Chemistry and Certificate Practice Book, by Robert Wensley (2013) - for IGCSE and Certificate. Recommended by a home-educator, who wrote: "They are full of exam style questions and detailed guidance on how to answer to gain the most marks.". The only drawback is that the answers have disappeared from the Hodder site. Hodder provided them for our group member and the files are available below.

Past Papers

Collection of older Edexcel IGCSE papers

For more exam papers, you will usually have to look on free exam paper sharing sites - eg

Freeexampapers.com Chemistry IGCSE page

Edexcel provide a useful iPad app called 'Edexcel Past Papers' which gives instant, free, access to many past papers.

Alternative to Practicals Questions

The Edexcel specification includes 'alternative to Practicals' questions, rather than requiring a practical exam. One way to prepare is simply working through loads of past papers and then carefully reading the mark scheme and examiners' reports afterwards. The old spec is perfectly good for this - in fact you can just get the 'alternative to practical' paper from the old spec (paper 3) and work through that. The change in specification was mainly for structure and there was not a huge change in content.

These questions about changes to an experiment are often straightforward; there are recurring themes, eg whether you can take accurate measurements in the current setup and whether there are any safety issues.

AQA Level 1/2 Certificate in Chemistry

This is a new specification available to private candidates from June 2013 (2 papers)

AQA Chemistry Certificate/IGCSE)

Chemistry Practicals and Experiments

Many of the practicals recommended in the syllabus can be carried out at home; it is surprising how much can be done with relatively little kit, but you may also find that equipment is often affordable. For those experiments which you are not able to carry out at home, there are many videos on YouTube. Many school chemistry classes use videos rather than hands-on practicals for a reasonable proportion of the syllabus.

Some options for gaining practical experience:

Work through some of the experiments in the syllabus yourself. Practical suggestions on how to do it here:

Chemistry Practicals for Home-Ed an edit of the Edexcel Scheme of Work with some notes for home ed families

Find a local chemistry tutor and ask them to carry out some experiments with you. We did this for practicals that I was not confident about, and it worked well. The tutor would give me shopping lists of chemicals to obtain and worked with what equipment we had or could obtain cheaply and easily. He enjoyed the chance to do real chemistry rather than helping kids cram!

Some tutorial colleges and Further Education colleges offer practical science courses, although these are most often aimed at A-level students - eg [Campbell Harris A-level Chemistry evening course]

Chemistry Camps and Roadshows run by universities etc, eg [Salters Chemistry Camps] have been very highly recommended by home-ed families. See below.

Royal Institution's Young Scientist Centre workshops, and other similar activities at science museums.

Salters Chemistry Camps

Salters Chemistry Camps]

"Students spend three days and two nights at the Host University, staying in the University Halls of Residence, and using the laboratories. They carry out new, exciting experiments, and have the chance to delve into areas of chemistry that are perhaps not covered at school. Further background information is presented through entertaining lectures and (often noisy!) demonstrations. In the evenings, practical work in the labs is put on the back burner, and students enjoy a variety of social activities."

Home-ed parents can nominate children in the same way that schools can, and several home-ed children have highly recommended these camps in the past. Students should be in Year 10, ie aged 14-15; not sure if there is any flexibility on this.

Also do Salters Festival of Chemistry for younger children.

Royal Institution Young Scientist Centre

Institution L'Oreal Young Scientist Centre in London, has workshops which involve practical lab work for different age groups. London home-ed groups regularly organise school sessions there, but you can also book as individuals during their Summer School, for instance.

Supplies

You can get most chemicals and equipment you need for IGCSE level, in small quantities, on eBay.

Kitchen Chemistry on eBay sells small quantities of chemistry kit spares.

See also the following suppliers of equipment and/or chemicals which have been recommended by home educators:

Rapidonline

Betterequipped.co.uk

Paradigm Shift - apparently no longer supplying, but listed here in case they recommence.

Chemistry

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